Gold Box The Dragonlance/Krynn series thread

[Null Null]

A lot of the concern over Satanism was the demons and devils (and there were rules for making deals with them in the earlier material) and, of course, the use of magic--you may remember there was concern about Harry Potter a decade or so later for the same reason.

There's always been the religious concern that fantasizing about immoral actions may make people more likely to commit them. Actors were actually considered immoral for a while because playing evil characters made them take on the sins of the people they were playing. In some places actors weren't allowed Christian burial. Moliere (the great French playwright, and now considered one of the great figures of the French language, basically their Shakespeare) was buried among unbaptised infants when he died in 1673. They dug up his body in 1792 (with the revolution) and eventually gave it a more prestigious burial.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

Ooookay... So I put on my robe and wizard hat.

 

[Lt Broccoli]

The genius of Raistlin was to take the adolescent power fantasy and put it on the wizard instead of the barbarian, which of course lots of us geeks sympathized with. He was Drizzt before his time.

(Hey, I liked him too. And I would have told the other Companions to bug off--do the right thing so I can be tortured forever by the Dark Queen? Nah, just gonna sit here in my empty universe, thanks.

It makes sense when you consider Weis & Hickman were Christians--he redeems himself by effectively becoming a Christ figure and saving the universe, though of course he's just undoing evil he did himself.)

On Fourthday, Fifthmonth, 358, the world ends. Genius.

Yeah I remember Raistlin...still have the novel series. I remember thinking he was quite unusual and sympathetic. He often separated himself form the party both physically and emotionally even from his twin many times. Quite enigmatic and certainly the most memorable of the characters. I wonder how he would be written today...

 

[Sykar]

He would be the supreme incel.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Was it the knight or paladin with high cha that let you control NPCs like PCs in battle. I don't know if it was in all 3 of thr Krynns but I think it was in DQOK. I don't recall it being in either FR saga even if the Frontier saga has enemies appear after x #rounds or could be called by others.

i guess no talk of the other krynn games?

 

[Bruma Hobo]

Knights can command soldiers since Death Knights, there was no such mechanic in Champions. I doubt paladins can do the same, and I have no idea of what the heck are they doing in the second game.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

If I could boot up my old amiga and find my saved alts I'd tell you.

 

[JamesDixon]

If I could boot up my old amiga and find my saved alts I'd tell you.

They do make Amiga emulators so if you can copy the files you should be able to open them there.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Those are buried deep with the amiga. Who knows what tote they're in.

 

[Null Null]

Was it the knight or paladin with high cha that let you control NPCs like PCs in battle. I don't know if it was in all 3 of thr Krynns but I think it was in DQOK. I don't recall it being in either FR saga even if the Frontier saga has enemies appear after x #rounds or could be called by others.

i guess no talk of the other krynn games?

Knights could control NPCs in Death Knights and Dark Queen.
Paladins could control NPCs in Pools of Darkness, Treasures of the Savage Frontier, and FRUA.

Not quite sure why they had knights and paladins in the same game (they kind of have the same role), but the paladin could turn undead, which was useful in Death Knights with all the undead.

 

[Null Null]

He would be the supreme incel.

Basically, yeah. They wouldn't have gone to any trouble to make him sympathetic, and he would have been a lot less memorable a villain. (Who remembers Verminaard?)

You may remember the brouhaha over the Joaquin Phoenix Joker movie, where the complaint from the left was that the incel-like character was too sympathetic. (Which is kind of ironic as the reason he finally goes over the edge is social services getting cut off, which is a classic 80s-90s liberal complaint.)

 

[Alex]

It is stated in the Champions of Krynn Adventurer's Journal, and throughout the series, that due to the nature of this adventure, evil Player Characters are not permitted.

The heroic quality of the missions and quests, and interactions is embedded in the fabric of the setting. One of the central themes of DragonLance is restoring the balance between Good and Evil, not necessarily the triumph of Good over Evil. It would likely be difficult to reconcile evil role-playing options consistent with such thematic coherency.

If you are trying to bring "balance between good and evil" (whatever that means), it seems even more appropriate that some of the party characters should be evil.

 

[Null Null]

My guess is it was 1990 and the Satanic Panic was in full swing but they didn't want to change the engine for the Forgotten Realms games so they had a no-evil-in-Dragonlance rule.

Dragonlance was much more Good Guys and Bad Guys, so it does kind of make sense. Pool of Radiance could theoretically be playable by evil characters who wanted the money and treasure from the ruined city, and then in Curse they wanted the bonds off. After that SSI was kind of mailing it in. Pools of Darkness I could definitely see evil characters throwing in with one of Bane's lieutenants to carve out a fiefdom in the post-apocalyptic Realms, but they didn't really let you go that way.

 

[Dorateen]

If you are trying to bring "balance between good and evil" (whatever that means)

The balance in this case had more to do with neither side growing too powerful. Fizban talks about this explicitly at the end of the Chronicles trilogy. The forces of good did not utterly wipe out the dragon armies, but rather forced them into retreat. The difference in the scenario is that evil was trying to conquer Ansalon, and the objective of the heroes was to stop it.

 

[Fowyr]

Knights can command soldiers since Death Knights, there was no such mechanic in Champions. I doubt paladins can do the same, and I have no idea of what the heck are they doing in the second game.

You definitely can command NPCs with the paladin character. Dunno about CoAB, but later games had such option.

It is stated in the Champions of Krynn Adventurer's Journal, and throughout the series, that due to the nature of this adventure, evil Player Characters are not permitted.

Yea, I still remember that my mages never had access to Necromancy school because of that. Only Black Robes have access to it.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I always thought Chemosh was a rather nasty sort. Mostly I was fascinated because of the undead angle.

https://dragonlance.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_Dragonlance_deities

Now with GBC could that be changed? (Playing evil characters in Krynn?)

And i still love the character combat icon selections on the amiga over dos or c64.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

I will never understand the cliché of having to mantain balance between good and evil. Is it implying that we can only achieve peace by compromising with corruption, that too much good is fascism, or what? It makes no sense.

 

[Mortmal]

Change my class and let me keep the sword then. All I wanted was to use that sword in battle, fuck the consequences.

Sure do , and you end up with a blob of best feats with no class identity like in pathfinder . While the solamnic knight on the other side has rich lore , better character design and makes much more sense , giving tithe , using non magic items but perfectioning his skills.

 

[Null Null]

I'm going to spoil everyone's fun and say that sword +5 in the tomb doesn't actually have any pluses. Download the item files with Gold Box Companion and take a look if you don't believe me.

In the old (pre-AD&D) days you could play a lawful, neutral, or chaotic character, and then they added on good and evil (there was a 5-point LG-CG-N-LE-CE system for a brief while). So neutral is just neutral. I think they decided they had to invent an ethical justification for neutrality, same way they more or less swiped Social Darwinism (survival of the fittest) as the justification for evil. Ironically fascism was influenced by Social Darwinism, so actually fascism would be pretty close to Lawful Evil as defined in the 1e-2e rules. (1e came out in the 70s so WW2 would have been on everyone's minds). Ironically, Lawful Good is all about sacrificing freedom for the common good, so communism would technically be Lawful Good in the AD&D rules (which I imagine the emaciated corpses of several million Ukrainians and Chinese, and a few generations of Eastern Europeans, would like to contest).

tl;dr: Real-life politics aside it was some stuff they made up to have 'ethics' for neutrals. 'I don't give a f***' is probably chaotic neutral.

There aren't any necromantic spells in the goldbox games after they removed Animate Dead from Curse. 1e only had Animate Dead, Feign Death, Reincarnation, and Clone, so black robes didn't have much to work with. (Death Spell and Power Word Kill were conjurations.) If you look carefully at the files of the enemies from Champions and Death, the mages described as 'black robes' only throw charm and hold spells (Enchantment/Charm) and invisibility (Illusion)--it's the rogue mages (Thaumaturgist, Enchanter in COK, Rogue Mage High in DKK) who toss the traditional fireballs and lightning bolt spells at you.

 

[Alex]

I will never understand the cliché of having to mantain balance between good and evil. Is it implying that we can only achieve peace by compromising with corruption, that too much good is fascism, or what? It makes no sense.

Yeah. Frankly, I think a story where the forces of good and evil join together to wipe out neutrality makes more sense.

(...snip)
Yea, I still remember that my mages never had access to Necromancy school because of that. Only Black Robes have access to it.

Necromancy is kinda weak as a school, though.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I will never understand the cliché of having to mantain balance between good and evil. Is it implying that we can only achieve peace by compromising with corruption, that too much good is fascism, or what? It makes no sense.

The history of the Dragonlance setting involves the rise of a country called Istar, under the rule of kingpriests who direct a series of holy wars to extirpate evil, including races considered intrinsically evil, and ultimately an effort to wipe out evil thoughts. This eventually leads the good-aligned deities to create a Cataclysm devastating the continent of Ansalon about three-and-a-half centuries prior to the events in the original series of adventure modules and novels. Istar itself is destroyed by the brunt of the Cataclysm, sinking into what becomes known as the Blood Sea.

Thanks to a time-travel gimmick, the first novel in the second Dragonlance trilogy (Legends) takes place during the last days of Istar.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

Extremely good clerics encouraging war and erradicating free will to get true-neutral automatons, too good to be true.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I'm going to spoil everyone's fun and say that sword +5 in the tomb doesn't actually have any pluses. Download the item files with Gold Box Companion and take a look if you don't believe me.

In the old (pre-AD&D) days you could play a lawful, neutral, or chaotic character, and then they added on good and evil (there was a 5-point LG-CG-N-LE-CE system for a brief while). So neutral is just neutral. I think they decided they had to invent an ethical justification for neutrality, same way they more or less swiped Social Darwinism (survival of the fittest) as the justification for evil. Ironically fascism was influenced by Social Darwinism, so actually fascism would be pretty close to Lawful Evil as defined in the 1e-2e rules. (1e came out in the 70s so WW2 would have been on everyone's minds). Ironically, Lawful Good is all about sacrificing freedom for the common good, so communism would technically be Lawful Good in the AD&D rules (which I imagine the emaciated corpses of several million Ukrainians and Chinese, and a few generations of Eastern Europeans, would like to contest).

tl;dr: Real-life politics aside it was some stuff they made up to have 'ethics' for neutrals. 'I don't give a f***' is probably chaotic neutral

There was a story of a paladin in the dragon magazine that was so lawful that it was basically being like how canada is now. My memory is hazy and the details are vague but i think if was the earliest 3e Dragons. If I recall, the ranger hated this guy. I think hd wore a sentient hell hound pelt and eventually killed the "great paladin."

 

[Fowyr]

Necromancy is kinda weak as a school, though.

Depends on the implemetation. There was a FRUA module Secret Nocturnes that showed some finer points of this school. It used some DMGR7 spells, though.

 

[Lt Broccoli]

I will never understand the cliché of having to mantain balance between good and evil. Is it implying that we can only achieve peace by compromising with corruption, that too much good is fascism, or what? It makes no sense.

There is an American painter called Bob Ross that I imagine would respond with this: "Gotta have opposites, light and dark and dark and light, in painting. It's like in life. Gotta have a little sadness once in awhile so you know when the good times come. I'm waiting on the good times now.". ― Bob Ross. Bob perhaps would appreciate DragonLance...mmm perhaps he could do some DragonLance art.